Thank you for your interest in helping our team localize Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues!

We are reestablishing development support translating our game to Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese languages! In order to meet the vast translation needs of our project, we return to you, our amazing community, in search of qualified volunteers with a passion for seeing our project reach many more players and communities!

Joining the Localization Team
As we get started rebuilding our teams and community, all potential applicants will be required to send an email to avinyard@portalarium.com with a subject of “Localization Application: [Username]” from the email address tied to your Shroud of the Avatar Account. Applications from emails not associated with an SotA Account will not be accepted.

As our localization teams restructure, we will eventually start to work through and rely on the support of our Localization Leads for community outreach, and reviewing candidates before applications are accepted.

Getting Started
Once your application is accepted you will be contacted through both email and Private Message on our forums with introductions, instructions, and details for how to get started translating.

An account will be created for you on our internal Localization server using the Zanata platform. Your account will automatically have privileges set to immediately dive into translating text strings for your selected Language Group.

We highly encourage applicants to engage with other Localizers, especially those that are members of the same language team. They will be invaluable resources to help answer questions and address issues going forward.

In addition to your private Zanata Localization account, your SotA account will have forum permissions applied that will allow you to have access to the Localization Team subforums where community discussion and translation/text/content bug reporting can be submitted, and feature requests and concerns made.

Further details will be provided in the application acceptance message.

Translation Incentives
In recent months we introduced as part of our Bug Reporting effort the Testing Incentives Program to provide rewards for players that provide valuable ongoing support to the growth and quality of our project. We would like to provide similar incentives here!

Unique Titles: By dedicating your time to Localizing our Project, whether it be translating directly, submitting bugs, or assisting in reviewing and fixing content/keyword errors, you will receive the unique in-game title of “Scribe” reserved for the great writers or New Britannia.

Volunteers that have provided significant contribution to Project Localization will be rewarded with the highest honor of “Royal Scrivener” and will be recognized for their outstanding work and dedication.

COTO: As with the Testing Incentives Program, volunteers that have contributed significantly in Localization over the course of a Release cycle for will be rewarded 5 Gold Crowns of the Obsidians.

We want to reiterate that these are volunteer roles and that incentives are provided as appreciation (not payment) for the time and work submitted. The real worth and reward from this process is a localized game that better brings broad communities together.

Terms of Use
Upon approval to the Localization team, all submitted localization content becomes the exclusive property of Portalarium, Inc. in perpetuityunless otherwise specified.

Such included localization content may also be used in all future episodes, companion applications, ports, sequels, derivative works, etc. Portalarium will also hold exclusive rights in perpetuity, unless otherwise specified, for all non-gaming usage of the included localization content.

By submitting localized content to Portalarium for possible inclusion in SotA, the submitter warrants they have the right to grant these terms of use and exclusivity of the submitted content to Portalarium, that they have obtained any and all necessary permissions from third parties to grant these terms to others, and that use of the submitted content in accordance with these terms shall not infringe the copyright of any third party. The submitter agrees to indemnify Portalarium of any claims made by any third parties that arise from Portalarium’s use of the submitted content in accordance with the terms being granted herein.

Do you plan to support more obscure languages (such as Czech or Japanese) in the future?

My concern with the initial translation is that English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese are all closely related. The grammar is very similar and despite few differences here and there the differences compared to Russian, Chinese, Japanes, Arabic (or Czech) are minor. It might be more difficult to make translation tools more robust in the future when you add unrelated languages. I cannot really speak for other languages, but I know that two major issue with translations into Czech is that you should know the gender of the speaker (or person you are speakig about including Avatar) in most cases. Another issue might be declension which is rather missing in English. And I am sure that other languages have other sets of problems.

Do you plan to support more obscure languages (such as Czech or Japanese) in the future?

My concern with the initial translation is that English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese are all closely related. The grammar is very similar and despite few differences here and there the differences compared to Russian, Chinese, Japanes, Arabic (or Czech) are minor. It might be more difficult to make translation tools more robust in the future when you add unrelated languages. I cannot really speak for other languages, but I know that two major issue with translations into Czech is that you should know the gender of the speaker (or person you are speakig about including Avatar) in most cases. Another issue might be declension which is rather missing in English. And I am sure that other languages have other sets of problems.

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I promise you that we are well aware of the issues of gendered language, and have it covered in our translation ruleset.

Unfortunately, I cannot speak to if we intend to expand the scope of supported languages in the future. Some of this may well depend on how well we can get the current language projects to work.

Could you please give some guidance on the scope and expected workload?
Thanks!

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This is a volunteer opportunity, so we greatly value ANY and ALL contribution toward the goal. Our project is constantly growing and evolving, which means that localization is often needed to keep up with these changes. As with our development, it's an ongoing process. Whether a team member can dedicate a single hour vs someone that can dedicate dozens a week, we appreciate it both.

As far as scope goes, localization will touch each element of dynamic text within our game whether it be the hints between loading screens, the conversations/responses/keywords of talking to NPCs, or even the words and descriptions provided in item tooltips, you can expect our Localizers to have a hand there.

Our Language Leads will also have a significant hand in helping to guide their teams for success, if it involves providing direction or answering questions, so that no one that joins the team need feel overwhelmed by the size of the task.

@Attenwood I was going to translate the initial post in this thread, like you suggested in a previous conversation, but then I said to myself "Hey ! If someone is not able to fully comprehend this post, he'll be prolly next to useless for this team."
Then, as I'm a polite guy, I answered to myself "Jacques, you're right !".
Therefore I did not translate it. <grin>

BUT I'd like to suggest you move this thread (or a revisited version of it, including the Language Leads name list) to a more "visible" forum, like the "General Discussion" one. We need to do some advertisement for recruitment.

If we find errors in original text - be it a missing space, changed letters, wrong capitals..., where do we post this for correction?
I hope for a sub-forum in "localization" with a small instruction and wished standards like in the bug section.

If we find errors in original text - be it a missing space, changed letters, wrong capitals..., where do we post this for correction?
I hope for a sub-forum in "localization" with a small instruction and wished standards like in the bug section.

If we find errors in original text - be it a missing space, changed letters, wrong capitals..., where do we post this for correction?
I hope for a sub-forum in "localization" with a small instruction and wished standards like in the bug section.

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Attenwood said that there will be a special thread on the localization forum, especially for this. Also we'll get a new contact inside Port to treat all the localization problems and give us answers and rule-of-thumbs regarding context and keywords.
I guess there will be a sub-forum for typos and errors (and only for those) in the new localization forum.@Attenwood : please confirm.

Landing SOTA on the distant shores of Asia will be a difficult market, yet not something that is impossible for the "SOTA Club" minded of us.

beginning I hope sometime in May, I will be paying one hell of allot more than 5 Crowns for my friends and I here in Thailand to begin our "SOTA Asian Invasion". First I will be paying for our "Team 5" interpreter to translate our SOTA's game instructions and place them into paper text so the players can have a reference at their fingertips while playing on a clip board provided. We will hopefully be able to reserve the entire internet café we meet at for players to come try out the game when the next limited free account special is on. Yet before this time, our hopes are to have 5 of the best players our local café has to offer who were introduced to me this last week. They have a leader named "Game" and from what I've seen them play, "we're going to have one hell of a good time having them all check out SOTA together, with me behind them watching on with free pizza to offer

A "SOTA Club"... it's not such an unusual idea when considering where D&D first kicked off the interest in our gaming genre.
The way I see it, I'm not investing in SOTA so much as I'm investing in a Club of Gaming Friends.

I think Asian Gaming Clubs have something for our SOTA, as much as SOTA has something for them "Team 5"

They're not all dudes either ... They are all in their early 20's and love computer gaming!

Our vision of SOTA is very similar to their own thoughts of how SOTA things should be.

I hope we welcome their arrival here in SOTA very well..."Team 5" Coming soon to a POT possibly near you ~Time Lord~

If we find errors in original text - be it a missing space, changed letters, wrong capitals..., where do we post this for correction?
I hope for a sub-forum in "localization" with a small instruction and wished standards like in the bug section.

Attenwood said that there will be a special thread on the localization forum, especially for this. Also we'll get a new contact inside Port to treat all the localization problems and give us answers and rule-of-thumbs regarding context and keywords.
I guess there will be a sub-forum for typos and errors (and only for those) in the new localization forum.@Attenwood : please confirm.

J from B

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Sorry for the delay on this! A button was missed on the initial forum setup when we archived the older threads. Everyone should now see subforums in the Localization Team forums in the following link. The subforums should be visible as follows:

Bugs/Typos/Content Issues: Where you can post any bugs related to the source English text (e.g. typos), as well as issues of how localized content is appearing in the game (e.g. translations not appearing as expected)

Context Questions: Regarding any questions that may be had regarding the meaning of the source Text to localize it appropriately (e.g. What does "Dirae Prophecy" mean, is the speaking NPC male or female, where in the game does this string appear, etc).

Feature Requests: Where localizes can provide feedback and requests for how to make the process easier. While not all requests will be possible, we will make efforts to reply to every report.